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The Present Problems of Social Psychology

Edward Alsworth Ross

Many of the scholars who in their sectional meetings are at this moment
running over the "present problems" of their respective sciences are in the
enviable position of having only to point out certain stumps, bog-holes,
thickets, and neglected fringes that mar the appearance of their well-tilled
fields. It is, however, my unhappy duty, in reporting upon the problems
besetting the pioneers of social psychology, to make what amounts to a resurvey
of the territory allotted to my science. So much of it is unsubdued wilderness,
so little is plowed field, that a review of the problems yet to be solved
requires me to run afresh the boundary lines, to drive the corner stakes, to
cruise the inclosed area, and to declare the whole domain, with the exception of
certain promising clearings which I shall take care to point out, open to entry
and settlement.

Human Psychology may from one point of view be divided into General and
Special, the former dealing with that which is common to all minds, the latter
with the differentiae which mark off one category of minds from another.
General Psychology may in turn be divided into Individual and Inter-individual,
the former concerned with mind as acted upon by things and experiences, the
latter with mind as acted upon by other minds. The latter, embracing as it does
every possible mode of association of human beings, belongs to Social
Psychology. Special Psychology likewise falls naturally into two sections, the
one determining the mental traits of anthropic varieties, such as races, sexes,
ages, temperaments, and types; the other, of societal varieties, such as
nationalities, classes, culture grades, etc. White there are some who would make
Social Psychology coextensive with inter-individual psychology and confine it to
studying the action of mind on mind, I believe it ought to include the
differential

(
457) psychology of people reared in different civilizations, social
formations, or family types, molded by unlike environments, occupations, and
civil conditions. It should inquire, not only how one person is affected by
another, but also how he is affected by variations in. Work, Reward, Mode of
Life, or Tradition. If these national and class types are ignored by Social
Psychology, I should like to know what branch of science will attend to them.

Inter-individual psychology has to deal with two sets. of problems-those
connected with personal relationships and those connected with social groupings.
The former call for a description of all the types of influence that one person
can exert upon another, and an exposition of the content of each of the chief
relations in which two human beings can stand to one another. What precisely
takes place when one person impresses or imitates, dominates or obeys, teaches
or believes, fascinates or antagonizes another? In view of the importance the
suggestion theory attaches to the hero, the apostle, and the prophet as
initiators of historic movements, these inquiries may mean much for social
science. Again, what is implied in such relations as friendship, dependence,
discipleship, clientage, pupilage, vassalage, agency, etc. ?

The field of personal interactions and relations has been explored, and it
cannot be said to offer us at the moment any serious problems. It would, in
fact, not be difficult to glean from the great imaginative writings, diaries,
and autobiographies of the world an anthology of selections that would set forth
with all the eloquence of genius the possible spiritual attitudes that persons
may assume with respect to one another.

What we lack, however, is a clear
notion of how such simple inter-individual processes give rise to such massive
and diffused products as languages, myths, customs, proverbs, and folk-lore.
These were certainly not conceived and imposed by some " super-man,"nor are they
the outcome of organized, associated effort. To wave them. aside as "collective
products" is to dodge the question. The building, diffusion, and transmission of
languages, myths, and the like appear to depend, not on mass-action of any kind,
but on innumerable molecular occurrences too petty to chal-

(
458) -lenge general attention. Tarde's resolution of these processes into
the repetition and in-and-in weaving of two elementary phenomena, the novel
combination of ideas in the individual mind -invention-and the action of mind an
mind---suggestion-imitation---is the only plausible explanation that has ever
been offered, and it doubtless leads a long way toward the solution of the
problem.

No chapters in sociology will be so attractive as those which treat of human
groupings. It took men a long time to discover the atmosphere, because
everything else is seen through that medium. So it took a long time to discover
the existence of subjective environments, because the social life of man
was seen through the refracting prejudices inspired by some one of these
environments. If at last the thinker is coming to appreciate the lordly role of
social groupings, it is because the fuller accounts of man in space—ethnology
—and in time — history — afford so broad a basis for comparison that he can now
lift himself above the narrow horizon of his date and place.

The union of men concerns us here, not because they flourish through their
co-operation, but because their natures are correspondingly modified. The
principles of organization, indeed, interest the social morphologist, but so
long as associates remain quite self-centered, and cold-bloodedly look upon
their society as a mere piece of mechanism helpful in the gaining of their
private ends, there is nothing about their union to challenge the social
psychologist. The fact is, however, that society reacts upon, transforms, even
socializes its members. Properties appear which the elements in the beginning
did not possess. It can be established, for instance, that the intellectual and
moral traits of any group-unit depend not only upon the original characters of
the units, but also upon two other things--upon their mode of combination-a
morphological fact---and their manner of inter-action --- a psychological fact.
The true community at once enlarges and imprisons minds. The individual ceases
to look upon his fellow co-operators as tools., his union with them as means to
an end. A consciousness of his group seizes upon him, and, whether we regard
this striking obsession as a monstrous

(
459) soul-parasite or as a noble graft upon an inferior stock, there is no
question that we are in the presence of a super-individual phenomenon. The
coincident ideas men have of their group become a spiritual structure, the
group-individuality, which trenches upon, even overshadows and well-nigh
supplants, their personal individuality.

The problem of social groupings is distinct from that of personal relations.
Although it is inter-individual action that extends through a population a plane
of agreement, such as a common speech, religion, or culture--a plane which, to
be sure, often serves as a convenient platform on which to rear some fabric of
collective life-itdoes not follow that a group-unit is built up out of nothing
but personal ties, that the bond between fellow-members must be some one of the
relations that may be established between two, individuals. In that case a
society, however complex and stable, would be resolvable into couples, each
exemplifying some type of reciprocal influence that can be observed between man
and man. No doubt there is much social tissue where people are webbed together
by spiritual threads stretching from person to person. In the higher social
formations, however, people do not cohere altogether in this simple way.In the
personal relationship the pales of thought are myself and my idea of the other
person. But in the relation of compatriots, or coreligionists, or
co-conspirators there comes first the thought of the ideal, leader, dynasty,
territory, possession, organ, or symbol that serves as keystone locking the
social arch, and then the thought of the fellow-member in the same attitude
toward it that I am. Recognition of this identity of relation establishes
between us a bond of sympathy. The vitality and strength of an active permanent
group consists, then, not so much in direct attachments among the members, as in
the attachment of all to something which serves to mark off that body of persons
from the rest of the world.

The subjective aspect of human groupings has of late years been taken in hand
by what is known as. collective psychology, and some really beautiful studies
have been made of the crowd, the party, the sect, the public, and the criminal
band. They have

(
460) already done us. the great service of showing that there is more than
one species of human association, and thereby refuting the pointless antithesis
of "individual, society;" "society, individual." the tiresome iteration of which
well-nigh discredited our young science. These studies have, however, been
random shots and show no co-ordinating idea. Too often the investigator imagines
the particular grouping he analyzes is the pattern of all association. The first
duty, then, is to put an end to this attempt to unlock all doors with one key,
by classifying social groupings into genera and species. Once they
are thrown into classes and sub-classes according to their psychic
characteristics, we shall know just how much ground there is to cover. The next
task is so to test and graduate them as to reveal the principal degrees of
socialization intervening between the absolute individual and the completest
group ego. The octave of stages of collective individuality seems to be
something like this :

1. Those of a certain category, finding a greater mental agreement with one
another than with other persons, seek out, associate with, and aid one another.
Here a diffused sociality exists, but no group ego.

2. They become conscious of their spiritual resemblances, and so begin to
think of themselves as a group apart.

3. In case their mental community extends to certain common purposes, they
spontaneously co-ordinate their like efforts for the realization of these
purposes. Such co-operation leads to a higher degree of sympathy and
comprehension.

4. They spontaneously co-ordinate unlike efforts for the realization of their
common purposes. Such division of labor favors a still higher degree of
understanding and mutual confidence.

5. Directive organs are created to secure co-ordination of efforts. The
concrete embodiment of collective aims in one man, or set of men, objectifies
the group, and assists the members to a clearer consciousness of their unity.

6. The sympathy among the socii is such that they restrain the members
of the community from aggression upon one another. Out of these spontaneous
activities develop, first, juristic rules, and, later, organs of control to
enforce these rules.

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461)

7. Organs are instituted to promote a completer socialization of the members
of the group. By means of festivals, public worship, authoritative doctrines,
education, and the like, it is sought to realize in all, not merely specific
sentiments, but a certain ideal of life.

Whatever the intermediate shadings, these seem to be the primary colors in
the moral spectrum that leads from personal ego to collective ego, from atomism
to a corporate consciousness that makes men feel they exist solely for their
tribe, state, church, or order; and willing not only to die, but, what is more,
to live for it. Now, after the social psychologist has determined the
note-worthy levels in the emergence of a group-individuality, and has set forth
their distinguishing characteristics, the yet more difficult task presents
itself of ascertaining the causes and conditions of each of these phases
of group-evolution. Some of these factors will be morphological, pertaining to
the constitution and form of the group. For example, are the persons in the
group few or many, alike or dissimilar, equal or graded, assembled or dispersed,
assembled by chance or by appointment? Do the members know or meet with one
another? Are their relations direct or chiefly indirect? Is their association
casual or intentional, open or close, temporary or permanent, public or secret,
for general ends or for a specific end? How do executive centers arise?
Are they simple or compound? Are the power-holders movable or irremovable,
absolute or responsible, chosen for a term or for life, limited or unlimited in
their powers?

The make-up of the group is, nevertheless, not the only thing that determines
what stage of unity it shall reach. How definite are its guiding ideas or
ideals? How important are the purposes the group undertakes to realize? Is there
any other way of realizing them than by collective action ? What sacrifices are
required ?How much energy is lost through friction? To what extent does
organization chafe the organized? How far is socialization resisted by
influences that fortify personal individuality? How far is it qualified by a
dominant society? Is it limited by rival groupings, dividing the allegiance of
its members? How complete is the assimilation possible among them? How does time

(
462) contribute to the triumph of the corporate self? Upon these and upon
other factors, of which we have as yet noteven an inkling, depends the
degree of socialization.- How thick is the darkness that shrouds this process we
realize as we stand amazed before the manifestations by the Japanese f a
national consciousness of an unprecedented intensity. The systematic reliance
upon voluntary immolation is something new in warfare, and no doubt ere long the
envious occidental statesmen and war-lords will be inciting social psychologists
to ascertain the conditions in Japanese national life that generate a spirit of
self-sacrifice so, unexampled.

Let no one interpose at this point that the search for specific
factors, that is to say, the quest for causal laws, is vain because the human
will is not law-abiding. It is precisely in the mass-functions of
conscious individuals that regularities declare themselves and may be
formulated. In dealing with the behavior f numbers, the psychologist is not
restricted to the humble duties of classification and description, but may with
full right aspire to the noble office of discovering causes.

The discriminating of levels in the emergence of a group-individuality will
reveal all possible encroachments of the collective self upon the personal self,
all the possible proportions between corporate feeling and private interest. But
can this series of levels be run through by any one group? If so, we could
virtually plot the life-curve of a group from birth to death, foretell its
development from stage to stage until, after it passes its zenith, it is
absorbed, or breaks up into other groups, or gradually disintegrates and allows
the erstwhile submerged personal individualities to reappear. The idea is
attractive, but illusory. There are probably a number of lines along which
groups evolve. For example, a body of eccentric coreligionists, hated and
persecuted, may grow more and more intimate, fanatical, and exclusive, until
they become "a peculiar people," keeping to themselves and sinking their entire
lives in the life of the sect. Active groups, on the other hand, move in
the direction of organization. Those who co-operate on behalf of some
vital common interest may differentiate organ after organ, to serve as bearers
of the common will and centers of co-ordination. Again, the community may

(
463) move along the line of control, more and more subjecting private
opinion and conduct to general opinion, and secreting morality and law as
binding material. If my surmise be correct, we are called upon to trace these
diverging lines of group-development, and to discriminate the forces at work in
each of these evolutions.

Lest I be reproached for bounding the field of collective psychology, rather
than pointing out the particular problems it ought to attack, let me state some
of the concrete questions that are puzzling me today.

Which architect is the chief builder of group-units., Resemblance
between the units or Community of Interest? Does awareness of resemblance
inspire sympathies, which dispose men to unite their efforts in the joint
assertion of common interests, which were there all the time, but for which they
would not con-sent to co-operate? Or, does some grave posture of affairs, which
establishes among men a community of interest, compel them to co-operate; and
does their gratitude to one another for these services of mutual aid inspire
sympathies which perpetuate the union after the occasion for it has passed away?
In the one case men cleave to their kind and shun opposites; in the other case
they seek helpers and shun competitors. The one emphasizes ideas, the
other material interests, as source of the sentiments which unite or
divide men. It may be that the latter hypothesis holds for political
association, while the former holds for cultural association. Moreover, it may
be that one type prevails in the impulsive stage of human development,
while the other type tends to prevail in the rational stage.

Granting that awareness of resemblances and differences determines the
attitudes f persons toward one another, what is the relative importance of the
various traits in which people may agree or differ ? As regards physique, the
thorough mix-up of cephalic races suggests that head-form is insignificant.
Color, on
the other hand, is an. outstanding trait, and color-contrast is almost
always a hindrance to social feeling and a bar to inter-marriage. In ancient
India, as in our South, color seems to have been the foundation of caste.
The shock which a human being experiences on beholding a face of an unfamiliar
hue is

(
464) accentuated as soon as color-contrast becomes indelibly associated with
mental, moral, and social differences. Each race, moreover, works out its ideal
of personal beauty on the basis of its distinctive physical traits, and the
individuals of another race are apt to strike it as ugly and repulsive.

Some light on the problem is got by noting what points of difference are
emphasized when men are coining insulting epithets to hurl at their enemies.
With the ruder man personal appearance and habits count for much. One thinks of
his foes as "niggers," " greasers," " roundheads," " fuzzy-wuzzies," "
red-necks," " pale-faces," "red-haired devils," "brown monkeys," "redskins,"
"uncircumcised," " dagoes.,"" frog-eaters," "rat-eaters," etc. Somewhat higher
is the type that thinks of his enemy as a ," parley-voo," "goddam," "mick,"
"heathen," "infidel," "here-tic," or "Papist." Difference in speech is a serious
bar to, sympathy, for at first another's speech always sounds to us like the
gibberish of a chattering ape. The higher type of man is struck by cultural
differences only, and detests those who are " savage," "barbarous," or
"benighted."

It would seem. that, the higher the plane of culture, the more one is
affected by agreement or difference in mental content. Among the contents of the
mind, religious beliefs are more attended to than other general ideas, and the
ideals of life than religious beliefs. The discovery of agreement in feeling is
more socializing than intellectual agreement. A common enthusiasm for a symbol,
or a common love for a chief or dynasty, is of marked socializing value. Unlike
persons. or groups draw together in fellowship if third parties embrace them in
the same envy or hatred. Realizing that outsiders think of them as a group tends
to form persons into a group. The perception of a common purpose gradually
inspires sympathy, and thus. are socialized those who are physically different,
but who nevertheless have a community of interest.

Still it is not entirely clear under what conditions those who have a vital
common interest to promote will feel and act together. We now understand fairly
well the circumstances that favor or oppose the rise of a group-individuality in
local communities,

(
465) provinces, sections, and nations. But the emergence of an individuality
in interpenetrating socio-economic classes will not be understood until certain
neglected factors. are brought into consideration. How is the attitude of a man
toward the rest of his class affected by the fact that socio-economic classes
are in a hierarchy, and individuals are constantly escaping from one class into
a higher? Does not the secret hope of rising prompt many a man to identify
himself in imagination with the class he hopes to belong to rather than
the class. he actually belongs to? Are not the conflicts that, in view of their
clear oppositions of interest, one would expect to break out between commoners
and nobles, between peasants and bourgeoisie, between workingmen and employers,
frequently averted because the natural leaders and molders f opinion among the
workingmen hope to become capitalists, the peasants expect to see their sons in
the professions, the rich commoners trust to work themselves or their families
into the peer-age? If this surmise be correct, the decomposition of the national
society into hostile classes need not ensue when the decline of national
antagonism leaves in high relief the acute differentiation of the population in
respect to possessions and economic interests. It may be that, besides the
breaking-up of population into a social spectrum, there is needed the further
condition that the ascent from the red toward the violet end of this social
spectrum shall be too difficult and rare to tempt the élite of a lower grade to
renounce its present class interest in favor of a higher class it hopes at last
to enter.

With the growth of the social mind in extent and comprehension one cannot
help wondering what will be the fate of personal individuality. Will there be
more room for spontaneity and choice, or is the individual doomed to shrivel as
social aggregates enlarge and the mass of transmitted culture becomes huger and
more integrated? As that cockle-shell, the individual soul, leaving the tranquil
pool of tribal life, passes first into the sheltered lake of some city
community, then into the perilous sea of national life, and at last emerges upon
the immense ocean of humanity's life, does it enjoy an ever-widening scope for
free movement and self-direction, or does it, too frail to navigate the

(
466) vaster expanses, become more and more the sport of irresistible waves
and currents?

On the one hand, it may be urged that, as one rises clear of bodily wants and
promptings, one's self-determination contracts, one's life is more and more
molded by conceptual rather than impulsive factors; that is to say, by ideas,
ideals, beliefs, principles, and the like. The growing preponderance of such
factors subjects a man more to. his social environment, for these are just the
things that are easiest taken on by imitation or stamped in by education. You
say the stock of possessions to choose from grows with each generation. True,
but nevertheless the incompatible ideas and ideals become fewer, because one of
the incompatibles exterminates the other. Consider, moreover, how the diversity
in the cultural elements offered one becomes less owing to the march of
adaptation. Spelling becomes definite, idiomatic flexible speech falls under the
tyranny of grammar and of style. The dictionary expands, but the number f
synonyms declines as meanings become more shaded and precise. A religious
ferment emancipates souls, but out of it dogmas soon crystallize and close in on
the mind. In time unrelated dogmas are compared and sifted, and the
complementary ones are erected into an imposing theology like that of St. Thomas
or Calvin, which from foundation to turret-stone offers the believer no option!
So from the discussions of jurists emerge general principles which transform a
mass of incongruous, even contradictory, customs and statutes into a system of
jurisprudence from which inharmonious elements have been expelled and which
utterly dominates the ordinary intellect. Likewise ununified generalizations
about the external world, each trailing off into the unknown with many inviting
paths of suggestion, are integrated and the gaps filled in until there exists a
body of articulated propositions called a science; and the generalizations of
the various sciences find a still higher synthesis in systems of philosophy.

On the other hand, there is certainly a progressive diversification and
enrichment of culture which offers one a greater number of options and permits
him to indulge his individual fancy. The

(
467) great variety of sects seems harbinger of the day when there will be as
many creeds as there are believers. Science, of course, being a verified
transcript of reality, can be but one; but just as a widening circle of light
enlarges the surrounding ring of darkness, a growth of the Known gives fresh
opportunities to speculate about the Unknown. The widening scope for
individuality is seen in the coexistence in our occidental culture of a greater
number of types of music, styles of painting or architecture, forms f
literature, theories of life and conduct. Since these appeal to the needs of
diverse temperaments, it is unlikely that the spirit of unification will bring
about the triumph of one over the rest or their co-adaptation into one form. The
Protestant will not absorb the Catholic, nor the Methodist the Presbyterian.
Italian and German opera, lyric and dramatic poetry, realistic fiction and
romance, Stoicism and Epicurism, marriage as sacrament and marriage as contract,
the "woman " ideal and the "lady " ideal, will persist side by side because they
meet the needs of different people. ,just as a developed society
partly compensates for the cramping effect of specialism by offering the
individual a variety of vocations to select from, so, a developed culture
affords multifarious opportunities from which each can choose what is con-genial
to his nature.

The question posed is, to be sure, part of a larger question, namely : What
are the influences and conditions that socialize or individualize? St. Simon
thinks the life of humanity alternates between "organic" epochs and "critical "
epochs. It may be there is no such rhythm in history, but there are certainly
up-building forces and down-tearing forces, which shift their balance from time
to time. It is our business to discover which processes are emancipating and
which are limiting; to ascertain what institutions and types of education
conduce to self-determination, and how far this is compatible with social unity;
to inquire whether it is well to standardize ideas, beliefs, and tastes, or, on
the contrary, to encourage variety, nonconformity, even eccentricity, for the
sake of having a culture that will provide for every sort of mind its natural
aliment.

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468)

Leaving now the inter-individual-that is to say, the strictly " social "-
division of our science, we come to the special psychology of nationalities and
classes., in so far as they are of societal rather than natural origin.

One of our first tasks is to settle whether national characteristics should
be dealt with by Social Psychology or handed over to ethnology. This depends on
whether differences in national traits are due primarily to race-endowment or to
situation and history. It is certain that "blood" is not a solvent of every
problem in national psychology, and that " race" is no longer a juggler's hat
from which you can draw explanations of all manner of moral contrasts and
peculiarities. Nowadays no one charges to inborn differences the characteristic
contrasts between Englishmen and Russians, between Jews and Christians, between
Javanese and Japanese. The marvelous transformation, today of japan, tomorrow
perhaps of China and Siam and the Philippines, makes one doubt if even the
impassive oriental is held fast in the net of race. Perhaps the soul-markings of
Anglo-Saxons or Slavs or orientals are of societal origin, due to the
capitalization of centuries of experience in unlike situations, and to the
injection and saturation of individual minds with these transmitted products by
means of social circumpressure. When the Apache youth returned from Hampton, the
Hindoo back from Eton, or the Chinaman home from Yale reverts to ancestral ways,
everybody cries "Race! " But why ignore the force of early impressions? If we
had caught them as sucklings instead of as adolescents, perhaps there would be
no reversion. Why should we expect a few years of schooling to bleach those who
for a decade or more have been steeped in a special environment and culture?

The broad moral contrasts between German, Turk, and Gipsy must 'be due to
Race, or to Environment, physical and social. Now, how much weight ought we to
assign to the race-factor? For my own part, I doubt if ideas ever get into the
blood, or feelings and dispositions that depend on particular ideas. The
Chinaman is not born a conservative, the Turk a fatalist, the Hindoo a
pessimist, the Semite a monotheist. Notions and beliefs do not become fixed
race-characters, nor do the emotions and conduct

(
469) connected with them become congenital. Yet, considering how differently
the peoples have been winnowed and selected by their respective environments,
occupations, and histories, I see no reason why there should not arise between
them differences in motor and emotional response to stimulus.

Even now in the same stock, nay, even in the same family, we find
congenital differences in the strength of sex-appetite, jealousy, self-control,
the taste for liquor, the craving for excitement, the migratory impulse, the
capacity for regular labor, the spirit of enterprise, the power to postpone
gratification-differences which defy eradication by example or instruction. If
such diversities declare themselves within a people, why not between.
peoples? Will not a destructive environment select the sensual, a bountiful
environment the temperate, a niggardly environment the laborious, a capricious
environment the fore-looking ? Will not the restless survive under nomadism, the
bold under militancy, the supple under slavery, the calculating in an era of
commerce, the thrifty in an epoch of capitalism? Since intellectual gains are
indefinitely communicable, men do not survive according to their predisposition
to have or not to have a certain advantageous idea or belief. But modes of
response to stimulus are not so generalized by imitation. Men change their
thoughts, but not their elementary reactions, and, since according to these
reactions they survive or perish, it is possible for motor and emotional
differences to arise between peoples one in blood, but unlike in social history.

Let the social psychologist account for the cultural differences between
peoples and for the moral differences that hinge on some cultural element. Only
the simple undecomposable reactions involving no conceptual element would fall
to the race-psychologist. Of course, it is not easy to tell which
characteristics are elementary. Once we thought the laziness of the anemic
Georgia cracker came from a wrong ideal f life. Now we charge it to the
hook-worm, and administer thymol instead of the proverbs of Poor Richard. The
negro is not simply a black Anglo-Saxon deficient in schooling, but a being who
in strength of appetites and in power to control them differs considerably from
the white

(
470) man. Many of the alleged differences between Chinese and occidentals
will be wiped out when East and West come to share in a common civilization. But
it will be found, perhaps., that the occidental's love of excitement,
speculation, sport, and fighting flows from his greater restlessness due to a
thousand years less of schooling in industrialism than the Chinese have had.
Again, those who imagine that by imparting to Hindoos or Cinghalese our theology
the missionary endows them with our virtues and capacities certainly fail to
appreciate how much these depend on certain elementary motor reactions.

Passing now from the differentiae of peoples to the broad psychic
differences that appear within a given population, we first set aside as foreign
to our purpose the problems that engross the sex-psychologists, the child-study
people, the alienists, and the criminalists. The mental varieties they deal with
are at bottom anthropic, and their studies are prolongations of individual
psychology. In every people, however, there are classes marked by divergent
modes of thought and feeling. These class types. of mind are of societal origin,
and the delineation and explanation of them belong, I think, to Social
Psychology. Every social population is distributed into a series of unlike
subjective environments, their nature depending largely upon the constitution of
the society. Each of these special horizons tends to form men into a class and
create a mental type. Hence arise two problems : first, to deter-mine the
characteristics proper to each class, recognizing, of course, that in fact these
are often blurred and confused by modifying influences coming from other
classes; second, to show how these characteristics are generated by the manner
of life imposed on that class by its position in the social system. The married
and the unmarried lead quite dissimilar lives, and no doubt some day we shall
know the nature and causes of the psychic differences between the conjugal and
the celibate. Already the disciples. of Le Play, after distinguishing the
communal family, the individualistic family, and the stem-family, have sought to
differentiate the moral types that tend to arise within these several domes-tic
groups. The contrasts of rural and urban types must ever be

(
471) drawn afresh, for the city and country of our day are not city and
country as Aristophanes and Molière knew them.

Occupation is perhaps the chief molder of classes. The familiar
distinction of hunting, pastoral, agricultural, and industrial stages of social
evolution does not become significant until it is recognized that each of these
is not only a mode of production, but also a Iife. The business man and
the farmer differ in their mental processes, and a full setting forth of this
contrast would throw much light on revolutions in parties and policies. One of
the greatest "finds" in recent sociology resulted from carefully comparing the
leisure-class mind with the mind of the productive classes, and the traits
developed by industrial employments with those called forth by pecuniary
employments. Another nugget turned up by comparing the mentality that prevails
in plastic social formations, such as rising cities, colonies, and frontier
communities, with that of men in old and crystallized societies. The psychology
of the pauper, the prostitute, and the criminal, belonging partly to
anthropology, partly to sociology, have afforded a scientific basis for charity
and penology.

The systematic survey of class types ought to be extremely helpful to general
sociology. How can we definitively appraise slavery until we know what manner of
man the master tends to became, what manner of man the slave? Haw can we
estimate militancy without understanding the mental type created by the
addiction to warlike pursuits? Ecclesiasticism and sacerdotalism cannot be
judged as. to their influence on society until we know the soul of the priest.
The genesis of political liberalism is an enigma unless we comprehend the type
of mind that forms in cities. Take a problem that now agitates the minds of
sociologists —that of class-strife. What arrays class against class?
"Interference of interests," says the Marxism; "classes hate and fight each
other because they are interested in incompatible social systems." But it is.
worth pondering if the strifes of classes are not often aggravated by the fact
that the combatants differ in mental type and do. not understand each other. The
successful conciliation of labor disputes suggests that the feud between capital
and labor is partly owing to divergent modes of thought and

(
472) feeling that grow up among employers on the one hand and workingmen on
the other.

ln this epoch of democracy and deliquescence society by no means falls apart
into neat segments, as it did two centuries ago. Caste has had its day, and the
compartment society, with thick bulkheads of privilege, prejudice,
non-intercourse, and non-intermarriage separating the classes, is welt-nigh
extinct. Today the imprint each manner of life tends to leave on those who lead
it is continually effaced by such assimilating influences as Church, School,
Press, Party, Voluntary Association, and Public Opinion. But that imprint must
be deciphered if we are to gauge the significance of class ascendencies in
backward or by-gone societies. We need to know how and why a society dominated
by the sacerdotal class-Judea or mediæval Rome-differs from Sparta dominated by
the warrior class, Venice dominated by the commercial class, Florence
dominated by the artisan class, or the Transvaal dominated by the rural class.

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.

Notes

An address delivered at the International Congress of Arts and Science,
Department of Sociology, September, 1904.

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